Efficient volume matching of patients and providers

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods may include identifying, by a server computing system, data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared-health event; determining, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of patients based on the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients; determining, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and matching, by the server computing system, at least one patient from the plurality of patients with at least one healthcare provider from the plurality of the healthcare providers based on data related to the treatment specialty associated with the patient being similar to data related to a treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

An Application Data Sheet is filed concurrently with this specification as part of the present application. Each application that the present application claims benefit of or priority to as identified in the concurrently filed Application Data Sheet is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety and for all purposes.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to data processing and more specifically relates to matching patients with healthcare providers.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art.

As the second wave of Covid-19 is spreading in many major cities, renewed lockdown may be imminent for the US. Many health-care appointments may be cancelled or put off until a time when a vaccine is available or until the spread of Covid-19 is under control. When that time arrives, it is anticipated that the healthcare providers will be inundated with demands for their services, and many healthcare providers may not have enough resources to meet such demand.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only to provide examples of possible structures and process operations for the disclosed techniques. These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be made to implementations by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

FIG. 1 shows a diagram of an example computing system that may be used with some implementations.

FIG. 2 shows a diagram of an example network environment that may be used with some implementations.

FIG. 3A shows an example healthcare system, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 3B shows an example healthcare system and its rescheduling module, in accordance with some implementations.

FIGS. 3C-3D show example phases of reopening in different geographical areas, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 4A shows an example rescheduling module with its patient identification operation, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 4B shows an example rescheduling module with its treatment need identification operation, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 4C shows an example rescheduling module with specialty matching operations, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 5A shows an example rescheduling module with its risk categorizing operations, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 5B shows an example rescheduling module with its score determination operations, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 5C shows an example score table generated using the risk categories for a patient and the risk level associated with reopening phases, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 6A shows an example chart of hospital expenses, in accordance with some implementation.

FIG. 6B shows an example healthcare network with multiple healthcare facilities, in accordance with some implementation.

FIG. 6C shows an example of expenses associated with multiple healthcare facilities in a healthcare network as related to a healthcare procedure, in accordance with some implementation.

FIG. 7 is an example flow diagram of a process that may be used to implement a payment plan for a potential illness, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram illustrating architectural components of an applicable environment, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram further illustrating architectural components of an applicable environment, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 9 shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 10 shows a system diagram further illustrating the architecture of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance with some implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some implementations may include systems and methods for matching patients and providers as related to healthcare. The systems and methods may include identifying a plurality of patients having cancelled appointments because of a shared-health event, and classifying data related to the treatment need of each of a plurality of patients into a treatment specialty from a plurality of treatment specialties. Each of a plurality of providers may be associated with a treatment specialty from the plurality of treatment specialties. Each of the plurality of patients may be referred to a provider of the plurality of providers based on matching the treatment specialty associated with the treatment need of the patient and the treatment specialty associated with the provider and based on the provider having available resources to treat the patient.

Examples of systems and methods associated with matching patients and providers will be described with reference to some implementations. These examples are being provided solely to add context and aid in the understanding of the present disclosure. It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that the techniques described herein may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process operations have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure. Other applications are possible, such that the following examples should not be taken as definitive or limiting either in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in which are shown, by way of illustration, some implementations. Although these implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the disclosure, it is understood that these examples are not limiting, such that other implementations may be used and changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

As used herein, the term “multi-tenant database system” refers to those systems in which various elements of hardware and software of the database system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, a given application server may simultaneously process requests for a great number of customers, and a given database table may store rows for a potentially much greater number of customers.

The described subject matter may be implemented in the context of any computer-implemented system, such as a software-based system, a database system, a multi-tenant environment, or the like. Moreover, the described subject matter may be implemented in connection with two or more separate and distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and communicate with one another. One or more examples may be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, a method, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium containing computer readable instructions or computer program code, or as a computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein.

The disclosed implementations may include a computer-implemented method to match patients to providers as related to healthcare. The method may include identifying, by the server computing system, data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared health event; classifying, by the server computing system, the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients into a treatment specialty from a plurality of treatment specialties; determining, by the server computing system, a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and causing, by the server computing system, each of the plurality of patients to be referred to a healthcare provider of the plurality of healthcare providers based on matching the treatment specialty associated with the treatment need of the patient and the treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider and based on the healthcare provider having available resources to treat the patient.

The disclosed implementations may include a system for matching patients to providers as related to healthcare. The system may comprise a database system implemented using a server computing system, the database system configurable to cause identifying, by the server computing system, data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared health event; classifying, by the server computing system, the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients into a treatment specialty from a plurality of treatment specialties; determining, by the server computing system, a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and causing, by the server computing system, each of the plurality of patients to be referred to a healthcare provider of the plurality of healthcare providers based on matching the treatment specialty associated with the treatment need of the patient and the treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider and based on the healthcare provider having available resources to treat the patient.

The disclosed implementations may include a computer program product comprising computer-readable program code to be executed by one or more processors of a server computing system when retrieved from a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the program code including instructions to identify data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared health event; classify the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients into a treatment specialty from a plurality of treatment specialties; determining, by the server computing system, a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and cause each of the plurality of patients to be referred to a healthcare provider of the plurality of healthcare providers based on matching the treatment specialty associated with the treatment need of the patient and the treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider and based on the healthcare provider having available resources to treat the patient.

While one or more implementations and techniques are described with reference to matching patients and providers as related to healthcare implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the one or more implementations and techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Implementations may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the claimed subject matter. Further, some implementations may include using Hardware Security Module (HSM), a physical computing device that safeguards and manages digital keys for strong authentication, including, for example, the keys used to encrypt secrets associated with the data elements stored in the data stores. It may be noted that the term “data store” may refer to source control systems, file storage, virtual file systems, non-relational databases (such as NoSQL), etc.

Any of the above implementations may be used alone or together with one another in any combination. The one or more implementations encompassed within this specification may also include examples that are only partially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to at all in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although various implementations may have been motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, the implementations do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. In other words, different implementations may address different deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Some implementations may only partially address some deficiencies or just one deficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and some implementations may not address any of these deficiencies.

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example computing system that may be used with some implementations. In diagram 102, computing system 110 may be used by a user to establish a connection with a server computing system. The computing system 110 is only one example of a suitable computing system, such as a mobile computing system, and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the design. Neither should the computing system 110 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated. The design is operational with numerous other general-purpose or special-purpose computing systems. Examples of well-known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the design include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, mini-computers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like. For example, the computing system 110 may be implemented as a mobile computing system such as one that is configured to run with an operating system (e.g., iOS) developed by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. or an operating system (e.g., Android) that is developed by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.

Some implementations may be described in the general context of computing system executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that performs particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Those skilled in the art can implement the description and/or figures herein as computer-executable instructions, which can be embodied on any form of computing machine program product discussed below.

Some implementations may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.

Referring to FIG. 1, the computing system 110 may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit 120 having one or more processing cores, a system memory 130, and a system bus 121 that couples with various system components including the system memory 130 to the processing unit 120. The system bus 121 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) locale bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.

The computing system 110 typically includes a variety of computer program product. Computer program product can be any available media that can be accessed by computing system 110 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer program product may store information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by computing system 110. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, or program modules.

The system memory 130 may include computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 131 and random access memory (RAM) 132. A basic input/output system (BIOS) 133, containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computing system 110, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 131. RAM 132 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit 120. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1 also illustrates operating system 134, application programs 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137.

The computing system 110 may also include other removable/non-removable volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only, FIG. 1 also illustrates a hard disk drive 141 that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 151 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 152, and an optical disk drive 155 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk 156 such as, for example, a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, USB drives and devices, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive 141 is typically connected to the system bus 121 through a non-removable memory interface such as interface 140, and magnetic disk drive 151 and optical disk drive 155 are typically connected to the system bus 121 by a removable memory interface, such as interface 150.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in FIG. 1, provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computing system 110. In FIG. 1, for example, hard disk drive 141 is illustrated as storing operating system 144, application programs 145, other program modules 146, and program data 147. Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system 134, application programs 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137. The operating system 144, the application programs 145, the other program modules 146, and the program data 147 are given different numeric identification here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies.

A user may enter commands and information into the computing system 110 through input devices such as a keyboard 162, a microphone 163, and a pointing device 161, such as a mouse, trackball or touch pad or touch screen. Other input devices (not shown) may include a joystick, game pad, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 120 through a user input interface 160 that is coupled with the system bus 121, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 191 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 121 via an interface, such as a video interface 190. In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers 197 and printer 196, which may be connected through an output peripheral interface 190.

The computing system 110 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 180. The remote computer 180 may be a personal computer, a hand-held device, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computing system 110. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN) 171 and a wide area network (WAN) 173 but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

FIG. 1 includes a local area network (LAN) 171 and a wide area network (WAN) 173 but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computing system 110 may be connected to the LAN 171 through a network interface or adapter 170. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computing system 110 typically includes a modem 172 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 173, such as the Internet. The modem 172, which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus 121 via the user-input interface 160, or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computing system 110, or portions thereof, may be stored in a remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1 illustrates remote application programs 185 as residing on remote computer 180. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.

It should be noted that some implementations may be carried out on a computing system such as that described with respect to FIG. 1. However, some implementations may be carried out on a server, a computer devoted to message handling, handheld devices, or on a distributed system in which different portions of the present design may be carried out on different parts of the distributed computing system.

Another device that may be coupled with the system bus 121 is a power supply such as a battery or a Direct Current (DC) power supply) and Alternating Current (AC) adapter circuit. The DC power supply may be a battery, a fuel cell, or similar DC power source needs to be recharged on a periodic basis. The communication module (or modem) 172 may employ a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to establish a wireless communication channel. The communication module 172 may implement a wireless networking standard such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard, IEEE std. 802.11-1999, published by IEEE in 1999.

Examples of mobile computing systems may be a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a Netbook, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, or other similar device with on board processing power and wireless communications ability that is powered by a Direct Current (DC) power source that supplies DC voltage to the mobile computing system and that is solely within the mobile computing system and needs to be recharged on a periodic basis, such as a fuel cell or a battery.

FIG. 2 shows a diagram of an example network environment that may be used with some implementations. Diagram 200 includes computing systems 290 and 291. One or more of the computing systems 290 and 291 may be a mobile computing system. The computing systems 290 and 291 may be connected to the network 250 via a cellular connection or via a Wi-Fi router (not shown). The network 250 may be the Internet. The computing systems 290 and 291 may be coupled with server computing systems 255 via the network 250. The server computing system 255 may be coupled with database 270.

Each of the computing systems 290 and 291 may include an application module such as module 208 or 214. For example, a user may use the computing system 290 and the application module 208 to connect to and communicate with the server computing system 255 and log into application 257 (e.g., a Salesforce.com® application).

For some implementations, one of the computing systems 290 and 291 may be used by an administrator to initiate the process of matching specialty associated with a patient's treatment need with the specialty associated with a provider and scheduling a return appointment for the patient with the matched provider. The administrator may be associated with a healthcare network. A healthcare network may be associated with one or more healthcare facilities. A healthcare network may be associated with a server computing system (also referred to as a healthcare system). For example, the administrator may log into the healthcare system 255 via the application 257. The administrator may then cause execution of the application 260. The execution of the application may include identifying the specialty associated with a patient's treatment need. The application 260 may be coupled with database 270 which may be configured to store patient health records associated with a plurality of patients. The database 270 may span across multiple database systems and may include multiple databases that may be used by application 260 to determine a potential illness for one or more of the plurality of patients. For some implementations, the database 270 may be configured to store appointment information of the plurality of patients. For some implementations, the appointment information may include information about cancelled appointments due to a shared-health event (e.g., Covid-19).

FIG. 3A shows an example healthcare system, in accordance with some implementations. The healthcare system 305 in diagram 300 may be associated with a hospital, a medical group, a system of hospitals or with any healthcare facilities providing healthcare related services to a plurality of patients. For example, the healthcare system 305 may be implemented as a tenant in a multi-tenant environment and may be associated with a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants. The healthcare system 305 may be part of one system, or it may span several systems across multiple geographical areas.

For some implementations, the healthcare system 305 may be configured to cause performing operations related to managing available physical resources and physical capacities such as equipments and beds 335. For some implementations, the healthcare system 305 may be configured to cause performing operations related to managing available human resources or human capacities such as treating specialists 325 and supporting staff 330. For some implementations, the healthcare system 305 may be configured to cause performing operations related to patient outreach which may include communicating with the patients 320 to let them know that the hospitals or medical providers are open for business again and will be rebooking or rescheduling them and guide them through a scheduling process for return appointments. This may be performed by the customer outreach and patient appointment scheduling module 340. For some implementations, the healthcare system 305 may be configured to cause operations related to billing, finance or insurance payment 310 to process billing and to determine margin and revenue mix, collect payments for treatments provided to the plurality of patients 320. This may include operations related to completing insurance forms, filling out forms related to the intake processes, etc.

For some implementations, the healthcare system 305 may be configured to cause accessing an electronic health record (EHR) 315 to access patient health records for the plurality of patients 320. The EHR 315 may also be referred to as electronic medical record (EMR). The EHR 315 may be configured to store patient health records of patients associated with the healthcare system 305. For example, a patient health record may include information about a patient's most current health condition as well as information about past health condition. For some implementations, a patient health record may include information about past surgeries, type of treatments received, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images, laboratory and test results, hospital stay, past appointments, and insurance coverage information when applicable. For some implementations, a patient health record may also include characteristic information about a patient including, for example, age, racial background, education background, gender, employment information and current contact information including mailing address, telephone number and email address.

For some implementations, when there is a shared health event such as, for example, a pandemic, the healthcare system 305 may be configured to cause receiving shared health event update 345 from one or more of local, national and international health organization such as, for example, Center for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO). For example, the shared health event update 345 may include information about the different reopening phases associated with the shared health event.

FIG. 3B shows an example healthcare system and its rescheduling module, in accordance with some implementations. The healthcare system 305 in diagram 350 may be configured to cause performing health assessment of a plurality of patients within a certain time frame so that the plurality of patients can receive treatments delayed by a shared health event. For example, at or near the end of the shared health event, the patients whose treatments were delayed may need to be treated as soon as possible if their condition fit certain criteria. The health assessment operations may be performed by the rescheduling module 260. The rescheduling module 260 may be configured to evaluate each patient based on multiple factors such that an order may be established to schedule the plurality of patients to return for the treatments.

FIGS. 3C-3D show example phases of reopening in different geographical areas, in accordance with some implementations. Reopening phases 380 shown in FIG. 3C may correspond to the reopening phases from Covid-19 as applied in the state of New York. Reopening phases 382 shown in FIG. 3D may correspond to the reopening phases from Covid-19 as applied in the state of California. It may be noticed that the reopening phases 380 and 382 are different from one another, even though they are both applicable to Covid-19. There are three phases in the reopening phases 380, with phase 1 being most dangerous to high risk individuals, and they must stay at home. Phase 2 of the reopening phases 380 may be more open and businesses may resume operations but require practicing of social distancing. Phase 3 of the reopening phases 380 may be least restrictive where businesses may resume normal operations with normal staffing. In comparison, there are four phases in the reopening phases 382 with phase 1 being most restrictive, phases 2 and 3 may be applicable to reopening workplaces at lower risks and those at higher risks respectively, while phase 4 may be applicable to end of stay at home order and gradual opening of larger gathering venues.

It may be noticed that, since the reopening phases may be different for different areas (e.g., New York vs. California), it is possible that the timing of the reopening phases are also different. For example, while the state of New York may start the reopening phase 3 on Aug. 15, 2020, the state of California may start the reopening phase 3 on Jul. 15, 2020. It may also be noticed that the difference in the phases may be based on the difference in population density. For example, an area that has a large population may be associated with the reopening phases that may span over a longer time period as compared to an area of similar size but with a smaller population. The reopening phases may also vary based on availability of vaccine. For example, in an area where the vaccine is very accessible, the reopening phases may be more aggressive than an area where accessing the vaccine is difficult or not easily accessible.

For some implementations, a risk level may be associated with each reopening phase for a geographical area. The risk level may decrease as more safety measures such as, for example, social distancing requirements, mask requirements, etc. are put in place and practiced by members of the geographical area. For example, there may be a higher risk of being exposed to Covid-19 during reopening phase 1 of California than during the reopening phase 3 of California. For some implementations, the risk level associated with the reopening phases of a shared health event (e.g., Covid-19) may be considered in scheduling the plurality of patients for return appointments. For example, less patients may be scheduled for return appointment during reopening phase 1 in California, and more patients may be scheduled for return appointments during reopening phase 3 in California. As another example, patients with serious underlying condition such as heart disease may be less likely to be scheduled for a return appointment during the reopening phase 1 in California, but more likely to be scheduled for a return appointment during the reopening phase 3 in California.

For some implementations, a current reopening phase may be rolled back due to change to the shared health event, and the rescheduling of the patients for the return appointments may reflect the rolled back reopening phase. For example, the change in the shared health event may reflect a situation when the shared health event may become worse when it was expected to be better, and a current reopening phase (e.g., phase 3) may revert back to a previous reopening phase (e.g., phase 2) instead of the next reopening phase (e.g., phase 4).

FIG. 4A shows an example rescheduling module with its patient identification operation, in accordance with some implementations. As shown in diagram 400, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to include a patient identification module 410. For some implementations, when the treatments of the plurality of patients are delayed by the shared health event, their patient health records in the EHR 315 may be updated. For some implementations, the patient identification module 410 may be configured to retrieve patient health records from the EHR 315 and identify the patients whose healthcare appointments were cancelled due to a shared health event. For example, the EHR 315 may include information about the cancelled appointment and the type of treatment associated with the cancelled appointment for a patient. It may be possible that not every patient health record included in the EHR 315 is related to a cancelled appointment due to the shared health event. As such, the patient identification module 410 may be configured to evaluate each of the patient health records in the EHR 315 to identify those patient health records that are related to cancelled appointments. The information about these patients may be stored as patients with cancelled appointments 420.

FIG. 4B shows an example rescheduling module with specialty identification operations, in accordance with some implementations. As shown in diagram 450, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to include a treatment need identification module 455. The treatment needs associated with the cancelled appointments may vary with each patient. For some implementations, the treatment need identification module 455 may be configured to evaluate the patient health record of each of the patients with the cancelled appointments 420 and determine the treatment need associated with the cancelled appointments. For example, one patient's cancelled appointment may be related to removing kidney stones, while another patient's cancelled appointment may be related to a colonoscopy. The treatment specialty identification module 456 may also be configured to determine a specialty that the treatment need is associated with and generate the treatment specialty for the patient 460. For example, a patient who needs help with breathing issue may be associated with a lung specialty group.

For some implementations, when there are many patients to schedule for return appointments, the many patients may be grouped by the specialty associated with their treatment needs. For example, there may be one group of patients whose treatment needs may be associated with one specialty and another group of patients whose treatment needs may be associated with another specialty. For some implementations, these groups of patients may then be scheduled to be treated at different healthcare facilities by matching the specialty of each healthcare facility with the specialty associated with each patient's treatment needs.

The treatment needs associated with the cancelled appointments may vary with each patient. For some implementations, the treatment need identification module 455 may be configured to evaluate the patient health record of each of the patients with the cancelled appointments 420 and determine the treatment need associated with the cancelled appointments. For example, one patient's cancelled appointment may be related to removing kidney stones, while another patient's cancelled appointment may be related to a colonoscopy. The treatment specialty identification module 456 may also be configured to determine a specialty that the treatment need is associated with and generate the treatment specialty for the patient 460. For example, a patient who needs help with breathing issue may be associated with a lung specialty group.

FIG. 4C shows an example rescheduling module with specialty matching operations, in accordance with some implementations. As shown in diagram 470, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to include a patient and provider matching module 480. The patient and provider matching module 480 may be configured to match patients in the patient specialty groups 472, 473, 474 and 475 with the specialty providers 482, 483, 484 and 485. Each of the specialty provider groups 482, 483, 484 and 485 may include one or more health providers. For example, the health providers in the specialty provider group 482 may specialize in heart related disease, and the health providers in the specialty provider group 485 may specialize in lung related disease.

FIG. 5A shows an example rescheduling module with its risk categorizing operations, in accordance with some implementations. For some implementations, the priority of which patients in the same specialty group to be scheduled for a return appointment may be dependent on the patient's score. As shown in diagram 500, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to include a risk categorization module 505. The risk categorization module 505 may be configured to receive the patient treatment need information 460 and treatment information 510. For some implementations, the risk categorization module 505 may be configured to use the treatment information 510 to categorize the treatment needs into different risk categories. A risk category may be used to refer to the risk to the health of the patient if treatment is delayed. For example, some patients may need immediate attention because of the potential high risk associated with their treatment needs, while some other patients may need less immediate attention because of the potential low risk associated with their treatment needs.

The treatment information 510 may be established based on prior experience treating patients having similar treatment needs or based on recommendation of experts in the same field. For example, the treatment information 510 may include information indicating a colonoscopy is a low-risk category and a chemotherapy treatment is a high-risk category. The treatment information 510 may include information regarding the type of lab tests that may be required for the different types of treatment needs. Based on the patient treatment need information 460 and the treatment information 510, the risk categorization module 505 may assign a risk category to each patient. There may be many different risk categories ranging from a lowest risk to a highest risk. For example, there may be a low risk, a medium risk and a high risk. The risk categories of the patients may be stored in the patient risk category information for a patient 515. For some implementations, the risk category associated with each of the patients may be used to prioritize the patients that may need to be rescheduled for return appointments and the procedures and resources that may be required to treat the patients during their return appointments.

FIG. 5B shows an example rescheduling module with its score determination operations, in accordance with some implementations. As shown in diagram 550, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to include a score determination module 560. The score determination module 560 may be configured to receive the patient risk category information 515 and patient health history information 555. The patient health history information 555 may be accessed from the EHR 315 (shown in FIG. 3A). For some implementations, the score determination module 560 may be configured to evaluate the patient health history information 555 for each patient associated with the patient risk category information 515. Evaluating the patient health history information 555 for a patient may include evaluating the patient's prior treatments. For some implementations, evaluating the patient health history information 555 for a patient may also include determining a patient's characteristic which may include one or more of the patient's age, ethnic background, gender and geographic location where the patient is residing. For example, a patient who is healthy and associated with a high-risk category may be able to return for an appointment earlier than a patient who is not healthy and associated with a low-risk category.

For some implementations, the score determination module 560 may be configured to receive shared health event reopening phase information 570 for a particular geographical area where the patients are being evaluated for return appointments. For example, the score determination module 560 may be configured to evaluate patients in New York and, based on a current date, it may be able to determine a current reopening phase from the shared health event reopening phase information 570 for New York. For some implementations, the score determination module 560 may be configured to receive the risk level information associated with the reopening phases 572. For example, New York may consider the risk level associated with the reopening phase 1 to be highest, and the risk level associated with the reopening phase 3 to be lowest. For some implementations, the score determination module 560 may be configured to combine the risk level associated with a current reopening phase and the risk category associated with a patient to generate a combined score (or score) for each patient 575. For example, a patient assigned with a higher score may be able to return for an appointment sooner than a patient with a patient assigned with a lower score. For some implementations, a patient may only be scheduled for a return appointment at a healthcare facility associated with a specialty that is similar to the specialty associated with the patient's treatment need no matter what the patient's score is.

FIG. 5C shows an example score table generated using the risk categories for a patient and the risk level associated with reopening phases, in accordance with some implementations. The score table 680 includes the different reopening phases along the columns in decreasing risk level and the different risk categories along the row in decreasing risk categories. The content of each cell of the table may represent a score. In this example, the scores may range from “1” to “4”. A score of “1” may indicate that the situation is too dangerous to schedule a patient for a return appointment, and a score of “4” may indicate that the situation is sufficiently safe to schedule a patient for a return appointment. A score of “2” and “3” may be safe for some patients but may not be safe for others. For example, a patient assigned with a category 1 (as determined by the risk categorization module 505 shown in FIG. 5A) may be given a score of “1” (by the score determination module 560 shown in FIG. 5B) when the current reopening phase is the first phase. Similarly, a patient assigned with a category 2 may be given a score of “2” when the current reopening phase is the third phase; a patient assigned with a category 3 may be given a score of “2” when the current reopening phase is the second phase, and a patient assigned with a category 4 may be given a score of “3” when the current reopening phase is the second phase or third phase and a score of “4” when the current reopening phase is the fourth phase. It may be noted that other score values may be used to reflect a score of a patient based on the patient's risk category and a current reopening phase.

FIG. 6A shows an example chart of hospital expenses, in accordance with some implementation. The hospital expenses in diagram 600 includes information provided by The American Hospital Association in the “Trendwatch Chartbook 2016—The Economic Contribution of Hospitals” document. In diagram 600, the largest expense is the wages and benefits expense, claiming 59.1% of the total expense, followed by other services (Professional fees, Utilities, Professional Liability Insurance, Labor Intensive, Non-Labor Intensive) at 19.8%, other products (e.g., Food, Medical Instruments) at 14.1% and prescription drugs at 6.9%. Further, according to a Becker's Hospital CFO Report of Becker's Healthcare titled “Fitch: Nonprofit hospital margins improve for first time since 2016,” published on September 4^(th), 2019, “(T)he median operating margin for the 220 nonprofit hospitals was 2.1 percent in 2018, compared to 1.9 percent in 2017. Within the median operating margin, providers with Fitch's “AA” rating saw their operating margins decline from 5.1 percent to 4.5 percent.”

For some implementations, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to reschedule the patients for return appointments based on an expense model and a revenue model. The expense model may capture expense breakdowns classified by different types of expenses associated with a healthcare facility. One example of the expense breakdowns is shown in diagram 600. The expense model may be associated with a revenue model to provide a forecast of profit and loss. The revenue model may capture revenue predictions from different types of revenue opportunities or customer targets. The revenue model may be determined based on pricing information. For example, in healthcare, codes may be used to classify, and code all diagnoses, symptoms and procedures recorded in conjunction with hospital care. The codes may also be used in report to insurance companies for billings. Some examples of the codes include the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM). Insurance companies may associate each of the codes with an amount that they are willing to pay. For example, a CPT code of 92507 corresponds to “Special Otorhinolaryngologic Services” may be reimbursed by Medicare at $81.79 and by a certain insurance company at $85.00. There may be a standard rate, and a reimbursement rate by an insurance company may not be the same as the standard rate. The difference in the rates may result in a patient having to pay for the difference.

FIG. 6B shows an example healthcare network with multiple healthcare facilities, in accordance with some implementation. In diagram 650, the healthcare facilities 655, 660 and 665 may be associated with a healthcare network 652. The healthcare network 652 may be associated with the healthcare system 305 (shown in FIG. 3) which may include the rescheduling module 260. For some implementations, each of the healthcare facilities in a healthcare network may operate with its own operating budget. For example, the healthcare facility 655 may operate with an operating budget that has a wage and benefit expense that accounts for 65% of the total expenses, while the healthcare facility 660 and 665 may operate with a wage and benefit expenses of 48% and 52%, respectively. For some implementations, each of the healthcare facilities in a healthcare network may operate with a common operating margin determined by the healthcare network. For example, the operating margin may be set by the healthcare network 652 at three percent (3%).

For some implementations, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to schedule a patient for an appointment to one of the healthcare facilities in the healthcare network based on several criteria. For some implementations, the several criteria may include at least whether a healthcare facility has available resources including having the necessary equipment and staff expertise to treat a patient with a certain healthcare need. For example, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to determine whether a healthcare facility has an oncology department and whether the healthcare facility is able to provide different types of chemotherapy treatments for a patient diagnosed with cancer.

FIG. 6C shows an example of expenses associated with multiple healthcare facilities in a healthcare network as related to a healthcare procedure, in accordance with some implementation. A healthcare facility in a healthcare network 652 may be associated with a set of expenses for each service code such as the CPT code or the ICD-10-CM code. The expense for services provided as related to a CPT code may be based on the overall expense of the healthcare facility such as the expense example shown in FIG. 6A. Since the expense associated with a healthcare facility may vary from one healthcare facility to another healthcare facility, the expense that each healthcare facility assigns to each CPT code or ICD-10-CM code may be different. Diagram 670 includes information about a CPT code and a reimbursement by Medicare insurance for services associated with the CPT code. In this example, the CPT code is 92507 and the Medicare reimbursement is $80.79. For the same CPT code, the healthcare facility 655 may assign an expense of $78. Similarly, the healthcare facilities 660 and 665 may assign to the same CPT code an expense of $81 and $77.5.

Based on the reimbursement by Medicare and based on the expense assigned by each of the healthcare facilities 655, 660 and 675, the healthcare facility 665 shows a highest operating margin of four percent (4%), while the healthcare facility 660 shows a lowest operating margin of a negative one quarter of a percent (−0.25%). Based on the operating margin shown in diagram 670, the rescheduling module 260 may be configured to schedule a patient with a healthcare need associated with the CPT code 92507 with the healthcare facility 665 because its operating margin is highest at 4%.

For some implementations, one or more choices of healthcare facilities may be offered to a patient to enable the patient to select. For example, the one or more choices of the healthcare facilities may be communicated to a client or user computing device 291 associated with the patient. The one or more choices of the healthcare facilities communicated to the patient may include the healthcare facilities that have the operating margin consistent with the operating margin set by the healthcare network. For example, a patient associated with the CPT code 92507 may be offered to have an appointment scheduled at either the healthcare facility 655 or 665. For some implementations, the one or more choices of healthcare facilities may be offered to a patient based on the specialty associated with the healthcare facilities and based on the specialty that is associated with the patient's treatment need.

It may be possible that a shared health event may include multiple waves before a vaccine is discovered and become widely available. For some implementations, the scores (as determined by the score determination module 560) may be stored in the EHR 315 for each patient. For some implementations, as the scores are stored in the EHR 315 for multiple geographical areas (e.g., by regions, states, zip codes, etc.), it may be possible to use the information stored in the EHR 315 to identify or predict a next wave of shared-health event by geographical area based on information collected from the patients during engagement by the patient outreach module 615. For example, when a patient is engaged for a return appointment, feedback may be received from the patient that the patient is experiencing some symptoms that do not allow the patient to commit to a return appointment. The patient's current health condition may be noted in the EHR 315. When there are a high number of patients in a geographical area complaining about similar symptoms, it is possible that an outbreak (or another wave of a pandemic) may be happening in the geographical area.

FIG. 7 is an example flow diagram of a process that may be used to match a plurality of patients with providers based on specialty, in accordance with some implementations. The process in diagram 700 may be performed by a healthcare system (e.g., healthcare system 305 shown in FIG. 3A).

At block 705, each of a plurality of providers may be associated with a specialty. At block 710, the patients whose healthcare appointments were cancelled due to a shared health event are identified. This may require accessing an EHR such as the EHR 315 described in FIG. 3A. At block 715, the treatment need associated with each patient may be identified. The treatment need may be identified from the cancelled appointment of each patient. For example, a treatment need may be a colonoscopy. At block 720, a specialty associated with the treatment need may be determined. For some implementations, the operations at block 720 may be performed for all the patients who had cancelled appointments so that all the required specialties are determined. At block 725, matching operations may be performed to match each patient with a provider based on the specialty associated with the patient and the specialty associated with the provider. At block 730, each patient may be scheduled for a return appointment with the matched provider.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram 800 illustrating architectural components of an on-demand service environment, in accordance with some implementations. A client machine located in the cloud 804 (or Internet) may communicate with the on-demand service environment via one or more edge routers 808 and 812. The edge routers may communicate with one or more core switches 820 and 824 via firewall 816. The core switches may communicate with a load balancer 828, which may distribute server load over different pods, such as the pods 840 and 844. The pods 840 and 844, which may each include one or more servers and/or other computing resources, may perform data processing and other operations used to provide on-demand Services. Communication with the pods may be conducted via pod switches 832 and 836. Components of the on-demand service environment may communicate with a database storage system 856 via a database firewall 848 and a database switch 852.

As shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, accessing an on-demand service environment may involve communications transmitted among a variety of different hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demand service environment 800 is a simplified representation of an actual on-demand service environment. For example, while only one or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, some implementations of an on-demand service environment may include anywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demand service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand service environment 800 may be implemented on the same physical device or on different hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or a combination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “data processing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used herein are not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include any hardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 804 is intended to refer to a data network or plurality of data networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located in the cloud 804 may communicate with the on-demand service environment to access services provided by the on-demand service environment. For example, client machines may access the on-demand service environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/or process information.

In some implementations, the edge routers 808 and 812 route packets between the cloud 804 and other components of the on-demand service environment 800. The edge routers 808 and 812 may employ the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol of the Internet. The edge routers 808 and 812 may maintain a table of IP networks or ‘prefixes’ which designate network reachability among autonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more implementations, the firewall 816 may protect the inner components of the on-demand service environment 800 from Internet traffic. The firewall 816 may block, permit, or deny access to the inner components of the on-demand service environment 800 based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 816 may act as one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a stateful filter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall.

In some implementations, the core switches 820 and 824 are high-capacity switches that transfer packets within the on-demand service environment 800. The core switches 820 and 824 may be configured as network bridges that quickly route data between different components within the on-demand service environment. In some implementations, the use of two or more core switches 820 and 824 may provide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some implementations, the pods 840 and 844 may perform the core data processing and service functions provided by the on-demand service environment. Each pod may include various types of hardware and/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architecture is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 8B.

In some implementations, communication between the pods 840 and 844 may be conducted via the pod switches 832 and 836. The pod switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844 and client machines located in the cloud 804, for example via core switches 820 and 824. Also, the pod switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844 and the database storage 856.

In some implementations, the load balancer 828 may distribute workload between the pods 840 and 844. Balancing the on-demand service requests between the pods may assist in improving the use of resources, increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducing overhead. The load balancer 828 may include multilayer switches to analyze and forward traffic.

In some implementations, access to the database storage 856 may be guarded by a database firewall 848. The database firewall 848 may act as a computer application firewall operating at the database application layer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 848 may protect the database storage 856 from application attacks such as structure query language (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorized information disclosure.

In some implementations, the database firewall 848 may include a host using one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy traffic before passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 848 may inspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content or database requests. The database firewall 848 may work on the SQL application level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications' connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well as intercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a database network or application interface.

In some implementations, communication with the database storage system 856 may be conducted via the database switch 852. The multi-tenant database system 856 may include more than one hardware and/or software components for handling database queries. Accordingly, the database switch 852 may direct database queries transmitted by other components of the on-demand service environment (e.g., the pods 840 and 844) to the correct components within the database storage system 856. In some implementations, the database storage system 856 is an on-demand database system shared by many different organizations. The on-demand database system may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualized approach, or any other type of database approach. An on-demand database system is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of the pod 844, in accordance with one implementation. The pod 844 may be used to render services to a user of the on-demand service environment 800. In some implementations, each pod may include a variety of servers and/or other systems. The pod 844 includes one or more content batch servers 864, content search servers 868, query servers 882, Fileforce servers 886, access control system (ACS) servers 880, batch servers 884, and app servers 888. Also, the pod 844 includes database instances 890, quick file systems (QFS) 892, and indexers 894. In one or more implementations, some or all communication between the servers in the pod 844 may be transmitted via the switch 836.

In some implementations, the application servers 888 may include a hardware and/or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures (e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction of applications provided by the on-demand service environment 800 via the pod 844. Some such procedures may include operations for providing the services described herein. The content batch servers 864 may request internal to the pod. These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particular customer. For example, the content batch servers 864 may handle requests related to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 868 may provide query and indexer functions. For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 868 may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demand service environment. The Fileforce servers 886 may manage requests information stored in the Fileforce storage 898. The Fileforce storage 898 may store information such as documents, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requests for information using the Fileforce servers 886, the image footprint on the database may be reduced.

The query servers 882 may be used to retrieve information from one or more file systems. For example, the query system 872 may receive requests for information from the app servers 888 and then transmit information queries to the NFS 896 located outside the pod. The pod 844 may share a database instance 890 configured as a multi-tenant environment in which different organizations share access to the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 844 may require various hardware and/or software resources. In some implementations, the ACS servers 880 may control access to data, hardware resources, or software resources.

In some implementations, the batch servers 884 may process batch jobs, which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers 884 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers 888, to trigger the batch jobs. For some implementations, the QFS 892 may be an open source file system available from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS may serve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessing information available within the pod 844. The QFS 892 may support some volume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be grouped together into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on a separate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applications where long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system may communicate with one or more content search servers 868 and/or indexers 894 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in the network file systems 896 and/or other storage systems.

In some implementations, one or more query servers 882 may communicate with the NFS 896 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside of the pod 844. The NFS 896 may allow servers located in the pod 844 to access information to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed. In some implementations, queries from the query servers 882 may be transmitted to the NFS 896 via the load balancer 820, which may distribute resource requests over various resources available in the on-demand service environment. The NFS 896 may also communicate with the QFS 892 to update the information stored on the NFS 896 and/or to provide information to the QFS 892 for use by servers located within the pod 844.

In some implementations, the pod may include one or more database instances 890. The database instance 890 may transmit information to the QFS 892. When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be available for use by servers within the pod 844 without requiring an additional database call. In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to the indexer 894. Indexer 894 may provide an index of information available in the database 890 and/or QFS 892. The index information may be provided to Fileforce servers 886 and/or the QFS 892.

FIG. 9 shows a block diagram of an environment 910 wherein an on-demand database service might be used, in accordance with some implementations. Environment 910 includes an on-demand database service 916. User system 912 may be any machine or system that is used by a user to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems 912 can be a handheld computing system, a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a workstation, and/or a network of computing systems. As illustrated in FIGS. 9 and 10, user systems 912 might interact via a network 914 with the on-demand database service 916.

An on-demand database service, such as system 916, is a database system that is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, but instead may be available for their use when the users need the database system (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand database services may store information from one or more tenants stored into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system (MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database service 916” and “system 916” will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one or more database objects. A relational database management system (RDBMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against the database object(s). Application platform 918 may be a framework that allows the applications of system 916 to run, such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an implementation, on-demand database service 916 may include an application platform 918 that enables creation, managing and executing one or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand database service via user systems 912, or third party application developers accessing the on-demand database service via user systems 912.

One arrangement for elements of system 916 is shown in FIG. 9, including a network interface 920, application platform 918, tenant data storage 922 for tenant data 923, system data storage 924 for system data 925 accessible to system 916 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 926 for implementing various functions of system 916, and a process space 928 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part of an application hosting service. Additional processes that may execute on system 916 include database indexing processes.

The users of user systems 912 may differ in their respective capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 912 might be entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. For example, where a call center agent is using a particular user system 912 to interact with system 916, the user system 912 has the capacities allotted to that call center agent. However, while an administrator is using that user system to interact with system 916, that user system has the capacities allotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical role model, users at one permission level may have access to applications, data, and database information accessible by a lower permission level user, but may not have access to certain applications, database information, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level. Thus, different users may have different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying application and database information, depending on a user's security or permission level.

Network 914 is any network or combination of networks of devices that communicate with one another. For example, network 914 can be any one or any combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration. As the most common type of computer network in current use is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol) network (e.g., the Internet), that network will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks used in some implementations are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

User systems 912 might communicate with system 916 using TCP/IP and, at a higher network level, use other common Internet protocols to communicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTP is used, user system 912 might include an HTTP client commonly referred to as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from an HTTP server at system 916. Such an HTTP server might be implemented as the sole network interface between system 916 and network 914, but other techniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations, the interface between system 916 and network 914 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality of servers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

In some implementations, system 916, shown in FIG. 9, implements a web-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in some implementations, system 916 includes application servers configured to implement and execute CRM software applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and from user systems 912 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database system related data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical database object, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared. In certain implementations, system 916 implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, system 916 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications. User (or third party developer) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform 918, which manages creation, storage of the applications into one or more database objects and executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the process space of the system 916.

Each user system 912 could include a desktop personal computer, workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol (WAP) enabled device or any other computing system capable of interfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other network connection. User system 912 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer® browser, Mozilla's Firefox® browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system) of user system 912 to access, process and view information, pages and applications available to it from system 916 over network 914.

Each user system 912 also typically includes one or more user interface devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by system 916 or other systems or servers. For example, the user interface device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system 916, and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations are suitable for use with the Internet, which refers to a specific global internetwork of networks. However, it should be understood that other networks can be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to some implementations, each user system 912 and all of its components are operator configurable using applications, such as a browser, including computer code run using a central processing unit such as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 916 (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) and all of their components might be operator configurable using application(s) including computer code to run using a central processing unit such as processor system 917, which may include an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units.

A computer program product implementation includes a machine-readable storage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be used to program a computer to perform any of the processes of the implementations described herein. Computer code for operating and configuring system 916 to intercommunicate and to process web pages, applications and other data and media content as described herein are preferably downloaded and stored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.). It will also be appreciated that computer code for carrying out disclosed operations can be implemented in any programming language that can be executed on a client system and/or server or server system such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™, JavaScript®, ActiveX®, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems®, Inc.).

According to some implementations, each system 916 is configured to provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client) systems 912 to support the access by user systems 912 as tenants of system 916. As such, system 916 provides security mechanisms to keep each tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one or more servers located in city A and one or more servers located in city B). As used herein, each MTS could include logically and/or physically connected servers distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to include a computing system, including processing hardware and process space(s), and an associated storage system and database application (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art.

It should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described herein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, a collection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online or offline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include a distributed database or storage network and associated processing intelligence.

FIG. 10 also shows a block diagram of environment 910 further illustrating system 916 and various interconnections, in accordance with some implementations. FIG. 10 shows that user system 912 may include processor system 912A, memory system 912B, input system 912C, and output system 912D. FIG. 10 shows network 914 and system 916. FIG. 10 also shows that system 916 may include tenant data storage 922, tenant data 923, system data storage 924, system data 925, User Interface (UI) 1030, Application Program Interface (API) 1032, PL/SOQL 1034, save routines 1036, application setup mechanism 1038, applications servers 10001-1000N, system process space 1002, tenant process spaces 1004, tenant management process space 1010, tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014, and application metadata 1016. In other implementations, environment 910 may not have the same elements as those listed above and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 912, network 914, system 916, tenant data storage 922, and system data storage 924 were discussed above in FIG. 9. Regarding user system 912, processor system 912A may be any combination of processors. Memory system 912B may be any combination of one or more memory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 912C may be any combination of input devices, such as keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. Output system 912D may be any combination of output devices, such as monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown by FIG. 10, system 916 may include a network interface 920 (of FIG. 9) implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 1000, an application platform 918, tenant data storage 922, and system data storage 924. Also shown is system process space 1002, including individual tenant process spaces 1004 and a tenant management process space 1010. Each application server 1000 may be configured to tenant data storage 922 and the tenant data 923 therein, and system data storage 924 and the system data 925 therein to serve requests of user systems 912. The tenant data 923 might be divided into individual tenant storage areas 1012, which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014 and application metadata 1016 might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage 1014. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage area 1012. A UI 1030 provides a user interface and an API 1032 provides an application programmer interface to system 916 resident processes to users and/or developers at user systems 912. The tenant data and the system data may be stored in various databases, such as Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 918 includes an application setup mechanism 1038 that supports application developers' creation and management of applications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage 922 by save routines 1036 for execution by subscribers as tenant process spaces 1004 managed by tenant management process 1010 for example. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 that provides a programming language style interface extension to API 1032. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations is discussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, filed Sep. 21, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 1016 for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 1000 may be communicably coupled to database systems, e.g., having access to system data 925 and tenant data 923, via a different network connection. For example, one application server 10001 might be coupled via the network 914 (e.g., the Internet), another application server 1000N-1 might be coupled via a direct network link, and another application server 1000N might be coupled by yet a different network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between application servers 1000 and the database system. However, other transport protocols may be used to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain implementations, each application server 1000 is configured to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is a tenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove application servers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there is preferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to a specific application server 1000. In some implementations, therefore, an interface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5 Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the application servers 1000 and the user systems 912 to distribute requests to the application servers 1000. In some implementations, the load balancer uses a least connections algorithm to route user requests to the application servers 1000. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, in certain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different application servers 1000, and three requests from different users could hit the same application server 1000. In this manner, system 916 is multi-tenant, wherein system 916 handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data and applications across disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs a sales force where each call center agent uses system 916 to manage their sales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., all applicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant data storage 922). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system having nothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example, if a call center agent is visiting a customer and the customer has Internet access in their lobby, the call center agent can obtain critical updates as to that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' data regardless of the employers of each user, some data might be organization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users or all of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, there might be some data structures managed by system 916 that are allocated at the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at the user level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants including possible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keep data, applications, and application use separate. Also, because many tenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that may be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data and tenant specific data, system 916 might also maintain system level data usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data might include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharable among tenants.

In certain implementations, user systems 912 (which may be client machines/systems) communicate with application servers 1000 to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from system 916 that may require sending one or more queries to tenant data storage 922 and/or system data storage 924. System 916 (e.g., an application server 1000 in system 916) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. System data storage 924 may generate query plans to access the requested data from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined categories. A “table” is one representation of a data object and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and custom objects according to some implementations. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more data categories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standard entities might include tables for account, contact, lead, and opportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields. U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, by Weissman, et al., and which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In some implementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logical tables per organization. In some implementations, multiple “tables” for a single customer may actually be stored in one large table and/or in the same table as the data of other customers.

These and other aspects of the disclosure may be implemented by various types of hardware, software, firmware, etc. For example, some features of the disclosure may be implemented, at least in part, by machine-program product that include program instructions, state information, etc., for performing various operations described herein. Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. Examples of machine-program product include, but are not limited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory devices (“ROM”) and random access memory (“RAM”).

While one or more implementations and techniques are described with reference to an implementation in which a service cloud console is implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the one or more implementations and techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Implementations may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the implementations claimed.

Any of the above implementations may be used alone or together with one another in any combination. Although various implementations may have been motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, the implementations do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. In other words, different implementations may address different deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Some implementations may only partially address some deficiencies or just one deficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and some implementations may not address any of these deficiencies.

While various implementations have been described herein, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present application should not be limited by any of the implementations described herein but should be defined only in accordance with the following and later-submitted claims and their equivalents. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for volume matching of patients and providers, the system comprising: a database system implemented using a server computing system, the database system configurable to cause: identifying, by the server computing system, data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared-health event; determining, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of patients based on the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients; determining, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and matching, by the server computing system, at least one patient from the plurality of patients with at least one healthcare provider from the plurality of the healthcare providers based on data related to the treatment specialty associated with the patient being similar to data related to a treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider.
 2. The system of claim 1, further comprising scheduling, by the server computing system, the at least one patient for a return appointment with the matched healthcare provider.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the scheduling is performed based on the matched healthcare provider having available resources to treat the at least one patient.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the matching is performed for all patients associated with a first treatment specialty prior to patients associated with a second treatment specialty.
 5. The system of claim 4, wherein each patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers associated with the first treatment specialty, and wherein the scheduling for the return appointment is performed based on the patient selecting one of the at least two healthcare providers.
 6. The system of claim 5, wherein each patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers based on a priority associated with at least a health history of the patient.
 7. The system of claim 6, wherein each patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers based on a priority associated with at least a current reopening phase of the shared-health event.
 8. A computer program product for volume matching of patients and providers comprising computer-readable program code to be executed by one or more processors when retrieved from a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the program code including instructions to: identify, by the server computing system, data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared-health event; determine, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of patients based on the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients; determine, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and match, by the server computing system, at least one patient from the plurality of patients with at least one healthcare provider from the plurality of the healthcare providers based on data related to the treatment specialty associated with the patient being similar to data related to a treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider.
 9. The computer program product of claim 8, further comprising instructions to schedule, by the server computing system, the at least one patient for a return appointment with the at least one healthcare provider.
 10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the instructions to schedule for the return appointment is performed based on the at least one healthcare provider having available resources to treat the at least one patient.
 11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the instructions to match the at least one patient with the at least one healthcare provider is performed for all patients associated with a first treatment specialty prior to patients associated with a second treatment specialty.
 12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein a patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers associated with the first treatment specialty, and wherein the scheduling of the patient for the return appointment is performed based on the patient selecting one of the at least two healthcare providers.
 13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers based on a priority associated with at least a health history of the patient.
 14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers based on a priority associated with at least a current reopening phase of the shared-health event.
 15. A computer-implemented method for volume matching of patients and providers, the method comprising: identifying, by a server computing system, data related to treatment needs of a plurality of patients associated with a plurality of healthcare providers, the data related to the treatment needs of the plurality of patients associated with cancelled health-related appointments because of a shared-health event; determining, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of patients based on the data related to the treatment needs of each of the plurality of patients; determining, by the server computing system, data related to a treatment specialty associated with each of the plurality of healthcare providers; and matching, by the server computing system, at least one patient from the plurality of patients with at least one healthcare provider from the plurality of the healthcare providers based on data related to the treatment specialty associated with the patient being similar to data related to a treatment specialty associated with the healthcare provider.
 16. The method of claim 15, further comprising scheduling, by the server computing system, the at least one patient for a return appointment with the matched healthcare provider.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the scheduling is performed based on the matched healthcare provider having available resources to treat the at least one patient.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the matching is performed for all patients associated with a first treatment specialty prior to patients associated with a second treatment specialty.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein each patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers associated with the first treatment specialty, and wherein the scheduling for the return appointment is performed based on the patient selecting one of the at least two healthcare providers.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein each patient associated with the first treatment specialty is matched with at least two healthcare providers based on a priority associated with a health history of the patient and a current reopening phase of the shared-health event. 